2GB Ray Hadley
RAY HADLEY:
There’s a story in News Limited papers today that should have us all concerned. Apparently, the annual cost of payments including Centrelink and Medicare will balloon over the next decade to $277 billion a year. It currently stands at the unbelievable figure of $149 billion. The Federal Social Services Minister, Christian Porter, who replaced Scott Morrison is in the role, he’s on the program right now. Minister, good morning to you.
MINISTER PORTER:
Morning, Ray.
RAY HADLEY:
Are these projections real or is it perhaps a bit fanciful to think we’re going to go from $149 in the next ten years to $277 billion?
MINISTER PORTER:
I think we should take very close care and attention to these types of projections. I think, one thing historically that people in public finances will find is that projections of expenditure are usually fairly good. These projections of expenditure are basically showing that the welfare bill is going to grow at around about 3.4 per cent a year above the inflation rate. That’s a very good marker to give a, sort of, sign as to whether or not the growth is too large, and when it’s that far above the inflation rate, or predicted to that far above the inflation rate, that is a matter of some concern.
RAY HADLEY:
Now, when I last spoke about this in relation to Disability Support Pensions with Scott Morrison your predecessor, we were talking about in excess of 800,000 people on the DSP. Is that still the figure now?
MINISTER PORTER:
Within broad terms that’s about right. Although one thing that we have found is that there were a range of reforms in terms of the application procedure and also in terms of the assessment of younger applicants and recipients of the Disability Support Pension as to their ability to work for some small period each fortnight. That process, which I must say was begun under the previous Labor Government, has slowed down the number of applicants which is what we would expect and which is the way in which you make these types of programmes sustainable. Because no one is saying that there aren’t a great number of people who genuinely need and properly should receive the Disability Support Pension. But if it grows at a rate which is far in excess of population growth, far in excess of revenue, far in excess of inflation, then that means that our capacity to sustain that sort of expenditure for the people who need it the most gets placed in jeopardy. This is, I think Ray, part of the conversation that we need to have. When the Government suggests expenditure restraint as we have done, in things like paid parental leave, suggesting a four week waiting period for the dole, family tax benefits is a matter that’s before parliament at the moment. Of course, no Government would want to necessarily decrease those expenditures unless it absolutely had to. But what the figures that we have in front of us tell us is that any responsible government has to look for ways to slow down the growth in expenditure.
RAY HADLEY:
You see the problem I have, and I know that you have appointed doctors now who are answerable to the Government for people on the DSP, but how do you get the 800,000 plus already on it, back in to the workforce in some way shape or form because it appears that we will never reduce it, we will just stop it from growing like topsy as it has recently.
MINISTER PORTER:
Well, slowing the growth is important, and that has an effect which washes through over time. So, I don’t think it should be underestimated how important the reforms that Scott Morrison brought in with respect to independent certification by independently appointed government doctors. A move that I think is imminently sensible that will have an impact, the impact will accumulate over time. That’s a policy say, for instance, the Greens opposed, lock stock and barrel. That’s wrongheaded in my view. But it’s also the case Ray, that with the Disability Support Pension that under the former Government and under the present Coalition Government there has been a level of reassessment of the younger recipients, so those under the age of 35, about their potential capacity for limited periods of work, and placing mutual obligations for that younger recipient of the DSP. And again, that is looking, if you like, at the present list of recipients and trying to make rational decisions about what is in the best interests of the programme, what is in the best interests of present and future recipients. And if there is a capacity to work for those younger members of the DSP recipient community, then it is in their best interests as well as the taxpayers that that ability is exercised.
RAY HADLEY:
We had members of Brothers for Life, Minister, you know, a criminal gang in New South Wales, incarcerated for shooting, murders, a whole range of things, on the DSP!
MINISTER PORTER:
Well, yes…
RAY HADLEY:
Able bodied, 20, 21, 22 year olds that, you know, their doctors were pulling some rort to put them on the DSP where they couldn’t work but they’d go out and shoot people.
MINISTER PORTER:
I mean, obviously, individual cases will from time to time arise that need to be considered. But I think what the Coalition Government has shown is that we are willing to look at areas of expenditure which are growing faster than everyone would expect, faster than is reasonably sustainable and undertake a rational analysis that is evidence-based as to what some of the drivers of that are. And, formulate a policy response…
RAY HADLEY:
Sure…
MINISTER PORTER:
And that’s what the former Minister did with independently certified government doctors checking people who are entering on to the DSP and it’s just common sense.
RAY HADLEY:
Just quickly, because we are out of time, it says here in the News Limited paper 70 per cent of dole recipients have been on Newstart allowance for more than a year. Is that figure realistic as well?
MINISTER PORTER:
Yes, it is…
RAY HADLEY:
Oh god…
MINISTER PORTER:
That’s not particular a happy figure but equally, what is interesting is that there is a relatively high percentage that move off Newstart and that allowance fairly quickly. So, you know there are jobs there, people move in and out of Newstart. The challenge for a good government is to make sure that figure drops down over time, and that Newstart is used as the name suggests, as a payment for people who have fallen in to some difficulty…
RAY HADLEY:
For a fresh start.
MINISTER PORTER:
Yes.
RAY HADLEY:
Okay, thank you for your time, I’ve got to fly.
MINISTER PORTER:
Pleasure, Ray.
RAY HADLEY:
I appreciate you talking to me, Christian Porter the Social Services Minister, Federal Social Services Minister.